What Are We Looking At?

If a female wears more masculine-like clothing to an interview, she is likelier to get hired. If a teacher assistant dresses more formal, they are going to be perceived as much more intelligent and respectful than those that wear causal clothing. If a person wears a white coat that they think belongs to a doctor, chances are their ability to pay attention will increase versus if someone wore a painters white coat.  Clothing effects how we see ourselves and how others see us. Researchers who concluded this agreed that clothing has an effect on our cognitive processes. Embodied cognition stems from this research. Embodied cognition focuses on the belief that we think with our brains as well as our bodies.

In an experiment led by Adam D Galinksy, a professor at Northwestern University, and his colleague Hajo Adam did three experiments where they manipulated the meaning behind the clothing rather than the clothing itself. They wanted to see how outfits alter the way we interact with the world.

In one experiment, 58 participants were randomly chosen to wear a white lab coat or casual, street, clothing. They were then given a selective attention test based on their ability to see incongruities when the word “red” appears in green. The ones who wore the lab coat had half as many wrong answers as those that were wearing casual clothing.

In the next experiment, 74 randomly assigned to three options: wearing a painter’s coat, a doctors coat, or just seeing the doctor’s coat. They were given a sustained attention test in which they had to look at two similar images next to each other and spot four minor differences as quickly as possible. They found that the ones who wore the doctor’s coat, which was the same as the painters, had a higher attention. There were few differences between the one wearing the painter’s coat and the ones observing the coat.

In the last experiment, they focused on the priming effect by observing if just seeing the physical object affect behavior. The setup was the same as the last experiment but this time the groups wrote essays about how they felt about the coats. The group that wore the doctor’s coat had the greatest improvement in sustained attention.

This research was able to conclude that clothing does have an effect on psychological states of mind.

This research made me think of the section in The Ravenous Brain by Daniel Bor, where he talks about layers of awareness. In this section of attention, the author speaks closely to self-awareness. He begins by saying that self-awareness can be simply defined as being aware of yourself while understanding the objects that surround you. He sums up self-awareness by saying “… [self-awareness] is a side product of both a deep intellect and a rich conscious life, rather than a cause of our extensive awareness”(134). I was interested in this section because he talks about recognizing one self in the mirror and recognizing our persona. The research above made me think that sometimes we can’t recognize ourselves because we are so easily ready to adapt to a new persona when given the right attire.

It’s more than who we are just as people; its who we are to the rest of the world. Sometimes, we think that if we look a certain way, we must act a certain way or vice versa. But then who are we without all the clothing and the stereotypes? What persona are we supposed to recognize if we’re trying to fit the one we dress like instead of who we actually are?